Surviving Bangalore; City Traffic, Lyme Disease and Cobras

So far on this trip I have survived cyclones, Lyme Disease, cobras and crossing the street by myself. Welcome to Bangalore!

Why yes, I am a thirty six years old and I can now say I can cross the street by myself!

It took me four days of city life in Bangalore to get the balls to face India’s concrete jungle traffic death trap. To be fair though the big avenue Kammanahalli Main Road here is comparable to Sunset Bouvard in Los Angeles. This is a street that pedestrians are constantly walking across in between the rickshaws, motorbikes, cows and don’t forget trying to maneuver around steaming piles of fresh cow manure.

It took me four days in India to get the nerve to cross the main road by myself. It also took half a day of boredom as the lingering remains of Cyclone Vardah had me incredibly bored by mid morning.

I came back from a voyage to the grocery store and seamstress in the late morning and proudly told my boyfriend,

“I crossed the street by myself!”

Crossing the street in Bangalore is not as easy as it sounds. You have to avoid the craziest drivers who are seeming to try and break every single traffic rule. You might be passed by a motorbike with four twelve year old kids riding it (No joke, we saw this in the morning) People here drive about as crazy as you can possibly imagine but they honk before they do illegal things to warn you to get the hell out of the way as if to say,

“I’m going to drive in the craziest way you can imagine and you are going to like it!”

India is a struggle and an adventure, even if I’m just doing the simplest things like learning to cross a massively crazy ass traffic clogged street.